The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit health care ratings organization, today released new Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades, awarding A’s to every eligible St. Luke’s acute care hospital.
The 11 campuses – Bethlehem, Allentown, Anderson, Carbon, Easton, Monroe, Miners, Sacred Heart, Upper Bucks and Warren, as well as Geisinger St. Luke’s Hospital – were among a select group of hospitals across the nation awarded an A for their commitment to keeping patients safe and meeting the highest safety standards in the nation.
“This rare achievement reflects St. Luke’s commitment to extending the very best care to every patient at all of our locations throughout the entire region,” says Donna Sabol, St. Luke’s Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer.
The Safety Grade assigns letter grades of A, B, C, D and F twice annually – in the spring and fall – to hospitals nationwide based on their performance in preventing medical errors, infections and other harms.
The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is the only rating solely focused on a hospital’s ability to protect patients from preventable errors, accidents, injuries and infections. Developed under the guidance of a panel of national experts, it uses 30 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to nearly 3,000 U.S. hospitals.
“Preventable deaths and harm in hospitals have been a major policy concern for decades,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog. “Significant variation in performance remains across U.S. hospitals. … All hospitals are not the same.”
St Luke’s high marks from Leapfrog echo the assessment in August by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS).
In its annual quality and safety hospital review, CMS awarded 10 St. Luke’s hospitals the highest possible quality rating of five stars. St. Luke’s was the only health network in the Lehigh Valley to receive five-star ratings.
Nationwide, an elite 8 percent of 4,658 eligible hospitals earned five stars. Remarkably, of Pennsylvania’s 189 eligible hospitals, nearly half of the 21 that earned five stars were St. Luke’s hospitals.
“Straight A’s and five stars – St. Luke’s is the only health network in Lehigh Valley to ever receive such high marks from both CMS and Leapfrog,” Sabol noted, “and that is a fact.”
About St. Luke’s
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 20,000 employees providing services at 15 campuses and 350+ outpatient sites. With annual net revenue of $3.4 billion, the Network’s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke’s hospitals operate the largest network of trauma centers in Pennsylvania, with the Bethlehem Campus being home to St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital.
Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school campus. It also operates the nation’s oldest School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 52 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with more than 500 residents and fellows. In 2022, St. Luke’s, a member of the Children’s Hospital Association, opened the Lehigh Valley’s first and only free-standing facility dedicated entirely to kids.
SLUHN is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare’s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. It is both a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. The Network’s flagship University Hospital has earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from Fortune/PINC AI 10 years in a row, including in 2023 when it was identified as THE #4 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. In 2021, St. Luke’s was identified as one of the 15 Top Health Systems nationally. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of the SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information. The Network is also recognized as one of the state’s lowest-cost providers.
Information provided to TVL by:
Sam Kennedy
